Incidents of Travel in Yucatan

By John L. Stephens

New York, Harper & Brothers, 1843, First Edition. 8vo —2 Volumes: xii, [9]-459; xvi, [9]-478 pp, complete with 124 illus and plates including 2 folding frontis panoramas, plus folding map, illus and two plans not in list of illustrations but part of book, tables. original gilt decorated cloth laid on burgundy cloth boards, rebacked with new cloth spine, gilt title lettering on spine, new endpapers. Intermittent foxing and some damp staining in Volume II. Overall a very good set of important books.— Sabin 91297. Welch 65.

This classic and influential work opened up a whole new area of research into the Mayan people. The plates by Catherwood are most impressive and have become famous in themselves. Considerable archeological research followed Stephens discoveries, "laying the foundation (so excellent were his judgments) on which Maya archaeology has since rested". - V. Von Hagen, in "Maya Explorer, John Lloyd Stephens and the Lost Cities of Central America and Yucatan". Griffen 1213: "Probably the most widely read and enjoyed books on American archaeology, these recount the adventures and describe most carefully, for the first time, the antiquities that Stephens and his artist-architect companion, Catherwood, encountered in the Maya country.

"The man who first awakened widespread American and English interest in the Maya ruins of Central America was John Lloyd Stephens." (Wauchope in ‘They Found the Buried Cities’). This a sequel to the author’s earlier work cut short by illness in 1841, and is much scarcer, the plates and illustrations by Catherwood are better and even more impressive than the earlier work, with more illustrations in this work, many of the sites illustrated are the first time ever illustrated. Its a completely different work. This was produced immediately after his first classic, which has been described as ‘The artisitc upshot of the expedition was the first non-fiction international best-seller produced by an American’ (Steve Glassman, On the Trail of the Maya Explorer). Field 14976: "These add to our astonishment by portraying the gigantic ruins of still more imposing structures, erected by the vanished race of peninsular aborigines". Hill p. 282: ‘describes all 44 ruined cities’. Smith S149: ‘Catherwood’s drawings of the ruins are outstanding’.